Under their beach cabana, Yi Chen asks if Mo Sheng likes children, and when she answers yes enthusiastically, he says, “Who is Xiao Jia?” After her initial shock from the question, she is about to answer, but Yi Chen cuts her off. *sigh* One thing Ying Hui was right about. Yi Chen is insecure and is too scared to let himself find out about Mo Sheng’s past, for fear he will hear something he doesn’t want to. I really wish they would just talk out the past now. Mo Sheng, on the other hand, seems to have come to terms with it, and looks straight back at him when she jokingly declares, he is the one choosing not to know and if he asks her in the future, she’s not going to tell him. Yay! Finally, the head down Mo Sheng is gone!

With Yi Chen away on his honeymoon, work for the other two bosses at the law firm has increased significantly. Lao Yuan mocks a spectacle-wearing Xiang Heng, “You both do the same work, but how come He Yi Chen can still maintain his male idol image while you look like a rich boy who lost all his money?”

While the two are still bantering, they see Yi Mei dash hurriedly up to Yi Chen’s office. Seeing Yi Chen is not there, she calls him and is surprised when she finds out he is out of country. She reveals the big secret to him, that Mo Sheng had actually gotten married in the US, but is stunned to find out he already knows. How could he decide to be with her again? Even if she is divorced, she was once with another man while he waited all that time for her… But Yi Chen interrupts, “I do not care.” “I don’t believe you. How can you not care?” Yi Mei incredulously asks. His answer is simple: “I will be able to.” They hang up, but Yi Mei cannot accept that he would choose a divorced woman over her. “What about me is inferior to Zhao Mo Sheng?” she yells in her mind. Lao Yuan comes up to find Yi Mei and lets slip that Yi Chen is on his honeymoon with Mo Sheng. She is hit hard by the realization that Yi Chen has married Mo Sheng and runs out of the firm in tears.

Clumsy Mo Sheng falls and skins her knee while playing on the beach. Yi Chen is extremely anxious and dramatically scoops her up into his arms, carrying her back to treat the injury. (I’ve had worse scrapes falling off my bicycle… and walked home to get a bandage. I guess that this only happens when it’s love.)

Peanuts: From the gifs, you can see how much WC has grown in strength 😛 During the filming of Too Late To Say I Love You, he can’t even carry Li Xiao Ran but in this drama he picked Tiffany up easily. This shows WC is getting stronger bodywise as well as in his acting. I am rather light so he should have no problem carrying me, lol.

Back in the room, Mo Sheng groans that if a scar is left behind, it would be so ugly when she wears a dress, but Yi Chen just reminds her that she is married and doesn’t need to worry about that.

Yuan Feng messages Yi Mei but gets no response. (Looks like the sponsorship changed from WeChat in Boss and Me to Laiwang in this drama, hence the nice zoom-in of the Laiwang messaging app.) With nothing to do, he goes to the movies to watch Turtle Adventure so that he can criticize Xiao Xiao after. But as he watches through the movie, he is moved to tears by it. He nods in unconscious agreement to people complimenting Xiao Xiao’s voice acting as he leaves the cinema but then catches himself. He then fires off a message to her: Watched the movie. It is pretty good, but you are the one failure of that movie.

Ying Hui gets the report that Mo Sheng and Yi Chen are in Mauritius. While Mo Sheng darts around the room looking for her charger, Yi Chen is out on the balcony remembering what Ying Hui had said, that he and Mo Sheng were still a legally married couple. Yi Chen calls a contact, Jason, in America, asking him to get someone to investigate Mo Sheng and Ying Hui’s divorce case.

Yi Mei dejectedly returns to her parents’ home in Yi City without telling anyone that she was arriving. Her mom pops into her room and tells her that Yi Chen could not get through to her on her phone and to give him a call. She cocoons herself in her blankets, weeping.

It’s a day of boating on the ocean and relaxing on the beach for Mo Sheng and Yi Chen. Plenty of sun… and smiles, hand-holding, snuggles… There’s even little kids (without parents?!) to play with them.

Himmy: Did u notice WC’s muscle? Ehehe I want to be hugged by WC strong arms. Is it just me or is he out of character when they’re riding on the boat? I kept thinking about The Amazing Race when I watched that scene lol.

(I know they didn’t actually film in Mauritius, but they did a good enough job fooling us that, as I sit here in my sweater and staring at the snow outside of my window, I really want to go on a beach vacation. 😦 )

While driving, Yuan Feng calls Yi Mei and, after several days of the phone being off, is finally able to get through. Yi Mei’s mother answers the call, and after hesitating a bit, he introduces himself as Yi Mei’s “friend” only. Yi Mei takes the phone, and he delightedly chatters away. But as he does, Yi Mei only says to him, “Yuan Feng, let’s break-up… I just realized that, when a person likes someone, it doesn’t matter how much effort anyone else invests in the relationship.” She tells him that she has never once fallen for him in the time they’ve been together, and apologizes several times for using him all this time. He asks to see her right then, but she refuses.

(Poor Yuan Feng, but I am actually glad that Yi Mei has at least woken up when it comes to her relationship with Yuan Feng to finally ended it and apologize for leading him on.)

Mo Sheng has a cold. Yi Chen makes medicine for her and brings it into the room.

Yi Chen: Look at you. Here. Take the medicine.
Mo Sheng: You brought that too?
Yi Chen: Mm.
Mo Sheng: Did you not check the almanac before we left? How come I’m so unlucky? First, I take a fall and now I have a cold. So miserable.
Yi Chen: I’m the one who’s on the losing end.
Mo Sheng: What have you lost? You didn’t catch a cold… (sees Yi Chen’s expression) Here, for you to drink.
Yi Chen: You’ve ruined all my plans. Finish drinking it.
Mo Sheng: What plan did you have?
Yi Chen: You’ve finished your medicine, now have a good sleep.
Mo Sheng: I can’t sleep if you don’t tell me.
Yi Chen: (leans in) To hurry up and make this a “real” marriage.
(Mo Sheng looks away and points at some random thing on the ceiling to try to distract him but Yi Chen pulls her face back towards him.)
Mo Sheng: (eyes closed in embarrassment) I have a cold!
Yi Chen: Now that you’ve taken your medicine, you’ll get better very quickly.
Mo Sheng: (slides under covers) I’m sleeping. I’m sleeping!
(Yi Chen tucks her into the covers and walks away while she peeps at him.)

Yi Chen stands at the door and looks back on her. “You’ve committed bigamy, did you know?” he asks in his mind. (Watch Wallace’s expression change from a sweet, contented look to a serious, concerned one when he thinks that. I enjoy watching his acting, how his emotions can play across his face.)

Linda receives a call for Ying Hui from his ex-girlfriend, Tong Xin Ying but tells her that he is in a meeting. In reality, he is sitting right beside her. He motions to give him the phone, so pretending that he just stepped out of the meeting, Linda hands the phone to him. Tong Xin Ying invites him out to eat fish with her at a restaurant they had discovered together way back in their first year of uni. Ying Hui is putting on his in love act and tells her how happy he is that she still remembers that restaurant, to which she replies, “Me too.” They hang up after arranging to meet at 9:00 the following morning, but when Linda reminds Ying Hui that he has a meeting at that time, he tells her, he is not going to go. Did I catch a relieved, almost happy smile flash across Linda’s face? Linda comments that he has not seemed very happy lately, but he merely agrees and says he will pay more attention to it.

(The whole game between Ying Hui and Tong Xin Ying gives me the creepy crawlies. One is leading the woman on out of… revenge? The other is a married woman who is trying her best to hook up with another man. If it’s out of true feelings, well, get a divorce first. If it’s out of gold digging, well, still get a divorce first. Ugh.)

Yuan Feng goes to find Xiao Xiao, demanding to know who that man is that Yi Mei loves and why he hasn’t let go of her if he doesn’t even like her. Xiao Xiao snaps back, “Who is the one unwilling to let go? It’s He Yi Mei herself!… What would you do if someone you don’t like has been sticking herself to you for ten plus years?” Xiao Xiao hangs out with him, saying she wants to enjoy the pain of a loser. (They still manage to do a product placement in this scene with Xiao Xiao handing him a can and stating, “Red Bull”. The product advertising is even more blatant in this drama than in Boss and Me.) After mocking him for a bit, she tells him seriously that the problem lies with Yi Mei, not him. When he says that he just doesn’t understand what about him isn’t as good as “that man”, Xiao Xiao scoffs and replies, everything — looks, bearing, abilities, income. She laughs at him that he is acting like a sissy over a break-up, and he retorts, he’s not like her, breaking hearts with her good looks. Does she even know what it feels like to have someone break-up with you?

Finally, we get Xiao Xiao’s story, when she was still the simple Shao Mei. Her eyes are red as she retorts, does he really think the strong woman front just came about in a day? The boy she liked had just been playing around with her, and she locked herself at home, not eating or speaking with anyone for two days. But in those two days, her grandmother, who was the one who raised her, became extremely sick and no one could find her to tell her. By the time she rushed back to see her grandmother, she had already died. She loathes herself every time she thinks about the fact that she did not get to see her grandmother one last time.

They go off together to a bar to drown their sorrows in Rio. Xiao Xiao brings a very intoxicated Yuan Feng back to his own home, but he won’t let her leave. And so they down more bottles of, can you guess? Rio! Of course, the story uses one of the most over-used plot devices and, when Yuan Feng wakes up the next morning, he discovers Xiao Xiao in the same bed as him, much to his panic! Xiao Xiao tells him, no big deal, they just drank a bit much. Follow the rules of the game of grown adults. Yuan Feng stutters, it was his first time! But she just tells him, she is not going to bear the responsibility for that and walks off. As she is leaving, she runs into Yuan Feng’s shocked parents, who have just returned home. “Hi there. I’m from property management. I’m here to check the water meter,” she tells them, then gives a polite nod and saunters away with just a button-up shirt on and her dress thrown over her shoulder. Yuan Feng’s mother recognizes Xiao Xiao and, suspecting them of having a one night stand, grills him as he lies in bed pretending to still be half-asleep.

(Actually, Xiao Xiao’s backstory was kind of blah. Maybe it’s because of lack of details, but remember when she said, if Mo Sheng had been around, she would not have become what she is today? Well, besides being heartbroken and not seeing the only person who loved her off, which I agree is horrible for anyone, what really is so terrible about who she is today? It hasn’t been implied that she has ever slept around to get where she is, and her career seems to be a choice she made. Hmm… I can’t quite seem to draw the connection of heartbreak to why her decision to make modelling a career is so horrible.)

Yi Chen has confined Mo Sheng to their hotel room for days now. As they sit out on the balcony, Mo Sheng complains how bored she is, how they have been eating the same thing, staring at the same view everyday, and isn’t he bored, too? Yi Chen tells her, she is not allowed to go out because she still has a fever and no, he is not bored because he can find things to do. Mo Sheng can only stare longingly out and point at the various things on the other side of the balcony.

Peanuts: Aiya, I want to complain why hoju always gets to recap WC eating? Feng Teng says he likes Shan Shan because she looks good while eating. That is before he sees WC eating, haha…….Oh, WC is making me so hungry like a wolf, haha…

Xiang Heng asks Lao Yuan if there is any work that still needs to be done. Apparently, their law firm’s workaholic (i.e. Yi Chen) called and asked him to send over some work to him. Xiang Heng delights in Yi Chen’s misfortune that his wife has been sick their whole honeymoon, saying it’s karma for leaving them with a bunch of work and going off to enjoy himself. Lao Yuan laughs, “Sick?” And then in his mind, thinks, “He must have been having too much ‘fun.'”

In the hotel room, Yi Chen is hard at work on his laptop while Mo Sheng is bored out of her mind. A pad of paper is pushed across the desk towards Yi Chen.

One hour!

They strike their deal but then immediately after, Mo Sheng sneezes. Yi Chen gives her a shrug that says, “Sorry, not my fault. Can’t do it,” but she immediately dashes off and brings back her box of cold medicine.

(Gawd, this scene is all sorts of cheesy, but I’m eating it right up. I LOVE this cheese. I had the silliest little grin, and I found Yi Chen’s expressions just adorable, especially when he bursts out laughing after Mo Sheng shows him the box of cold medicine.)

It’s the last day of their honeymoon, and Mo Sheng finally gets back out on the beach.

Mo Sheng: Sunshine, I just got to see you and now I’m going to have to leave you again… We get the rare chance to have a honeymoon and end up not doing anything. Such a pity, Yi Chen.
(Yi Chen pulls out a necklace that says “sunshine”)
Yi Chen: Sunshine. (puts on necklace for her) Is this still considered “not doing anything”?
Mo Sheng: (shakes head and giggles happily) When did you make this magically appear?
Yi Chen: Learned how to do it before… Sunshine

9 thoughts on “My Sunshine (何以笙箫默): Episode 23 Review and Recap”

this episode makes me back! my fave episode. i like YF and XX, and of course those cheesy scenes with our OTP are super adorable.. after 7 years of separation, can they just have a happy ending without the obstacles?? aiyoo.. wallace oh wallace, WO AI NI!

Haha! WC looked like himself in TAR China every time he laughed or acted cheesy during all those sugary sweet OTP scenes. WC couldn’t lift up LXR in “TLTSILY” because she was wearing tons and tons of heavy winter clothing underneath since they filmed in dead winter. Yeah, I’m such a sucker for BTS video clips. LOL! And whomever suntans on the beach fully clothed like that? Only workaholic Lawyer He. Too bad WC is too shy to sell some meat in this drama; otherwise its ratings would’ve hit the roof every time he takes off his clothes. Come on WC, indulge your hungry fans while you still have it. After all, you’re only 40 once. LOL! 😛